Madam Adam Interview

Madam Adam Interview 4/25/11    

View pictures @ theconcertscene.com/Concert_Gallery

Kacy Norman

I spent all day gearing up for yet another interview, this time with South Carolina’s Madam Adam. I did my research, and listened to their debut full-length Album, which was released April 5^th of this year, and I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised. There aren’t very many notable artists or bands out of South Carolina, with the exception of Hootie and the Blowfish, Rob Thomas, Chubby Checker, and of course, James Brown, but in my opinion, Madam Adam has the talent to be as successful. The arena style rock, reminiscent of nineties grunge, is hard to classify in any one genre of music. So I wanted to get the story behind this up and coming bands vision for their music. I spoke with lead singer, and guitarist, Scott Gould shortly before he was set to take the stage, in Idaho.

You guys have been together for many years, and you just recently released your first full-length album.

SG:  It’s been so many years now, since middle school. Our first debut came out April 5^th.

Was it a struggle? I mean, there’s such a large period of time between when you guys got together, and when the project was actually released.

SG: It’s been an uphill battle. Since the beginning, you know what I mean? Since starting out in the garage, to playing local shows, to getting a manager, to showcasing in front of major labels, to signing the deal, to recording the record, to waiting for the record to come out for a year. And it’s finally dropping… so yeah, it’s been a road.

Do you think being from South Carolina had anything to do with it? As opposed to being from, say, LA or NY?

SG: Yeah, I mean I would think that it’s going to be a little bit different, being as South Carolina’s so small, but, it’s kind of cool in a way. We were kind of a bigger fish in a little pond. If we were coming from LA or New York, it’s a big pond and there’s so many fish involved in that, I think it kind of worked both ways for us.

I read that you studied music theory?

SG: We did, when we were back home starting out, we wrote punk songs, and power chords, and four chord progressions and stuff. We wanted to take it to the next level and actually know what we were doing with our instruments. So we started taking music theory classes every Saturday with an elementary music teacher, and he would take time out of his Saturday afternoons and teach us for an hour or two, just to give us the basics on jazz theory and, circle fifths and all the musical nerd jargon. Just so we knew what we were doing with our instruments, and whatever feelings we were trying to invoke, we could achieve that a lot faster.

Is that the extent of how it affected your sound, and how you wrote?

SG: I think it definitely changed the way we wrote. It opened our eyes to so many other different palettes, you know, like colors, and other palettes in music. But even from there playing with other bands, and just going through the motions of so many years of being a band, I mean we’ve progressed. It wasn’t just the music theory that changed our sound. Time I guess…

Growing up and everything that comes with it?

SG: Yeah. Things change. You’re not a pissed off 16 year old forever.

Well, in theory anyway.

SG: ::laughs:: well, yeah, I guess some of us might still stay that way.

Listening to the album today, it almost felt like a diary to me. Was that intentional? How personal are the lyrics to you?

SG: It’s interesting you said that, because, the songs that you hear on that record span five years. They’re not all brand new; to us at least, it is a lot like a diary lyrically. Each song pretty much has a stage in our lives as a band. So yeah, it’s a timeline. So it’s really interesting that you said that and got that from the lyrics, most people don’t do that.

What was the vision for the record? You said a span of 5 years, so how did you keep the same vision going through it?

SG: We didn’t I guess? The vision kind of came together collectively when we started recording it. We wanted it to flow, like old school records would flow, to where you could listen to it frontwards to backwards. Because nowadays a lot of bands stick their singles right up front, ours starts off with our single, but we’d like it just to flow. It took a while for us to get the actual sequence down.

So being cohesive was an objective?

SG: Right! Yeah. Some of it has to do with key and tempo and feel, so we took some time to actually make that work.

What were you inspired by?

SG: Oh man… that’s a big question. Uhm, a lot of stuff. Growing up we were inspired by a lot of the grunge, and nineties, era music. Like I said, in taking theory and learning more about music, just accepting different styles, Influences range from Gwar to Phil Collins.

As a band I don’t think we really want to pigeon hole ourselves into one genre. We understand coming out of the gates, being a new band you kind of have to establish yourself one way or another. But after that we don’t want to be pigeon holed. We want to be able to create what we want to create. Which is a hard thing for a bad to do now a days.

You’re touring with Sick Puppies right now, right? How has that been going? Any craziness behind the scenes?

SG: We are. We’re on tour with Sick Puppies, Framing Hanley, and a band called Adelitas way. Last night was our first night off in quite a while. We were in Salt Lake City. A bunch of the bands got together, got some beers, some alcohol, and went bowling. So we just had a good time at a bowling alley.  So I guess that’s the extent of the craziness. We haven’t had a lot of time to be crazy on this tour. The legs… it’s like 8-10 hour drives between each show. It’s pretty much load in, sound check, play the show. Sell merch, and then pack up and drive all night to the next place. Try and get some sleep before we do it all over again.

Are you guys able to write now at all while touring, or has that kind of taken a back seat?

SG: We haven’t been writing right now. Our album just dropped this month, we were writing a lot before we left for this tour, but right now our focus is this being our first bigger tour. So we just want to make sure all our Ps and Qs are there, and that we’re not pissing anybody off because we’re the first band. Just making sure everything goes as smoothly as possible, and promote the record as much as we can.

You’re just starting out with the tour, but do you anticipate a headlining tour anytime in the near future?

SG: I hope so. That depends on how well the record does. Yeah. I’d love to get out there and headline. But as of right, we’re a “baby band’ as they call it, it’s cool, bands like sick puppies and hailstorm to take us out, under their wings, and put us in front of their fans. So far it’s been going really well.

What’s your fan base like thus far? Do you have people that come out specifically to see you guys? Do you have a big following back home?

SG: Ever since our record came out, and our single went to radio about a month before that, it’s not a crap ton of people, but we definitely have fans come up to the merch table and say “hey man, we came here to see you tonight.” Then it’s cool to look out in the crowd, whenever we play our single, see a couple people mouthing the words… that’s all kind of new to us.

Do you have specific goals, where you want this to take you guys? What are you looking forward to in the future?

SG: Ultimately I’d like to see this record take off, you know, gold platinum status, to where we’re out there touring with the big boys, you know being one of the big boys is ultimately our goal. But for right now, short term its tour tour tour tour, promote this record as much as we can.  Get out there, and get in front of people’s faces.

I don’t want to take up too much more of your time, so is there anything else you want to put out there? Any messages to fans, or any parting words?

SG: Just be ready to rock. Come out to the shows. Have a good time, that’s what I want to say.

~Kacy Norman